On Sunday, Pedro Lamy and JJ Lehto were involved in a starting-line accident. Track officials deployed the Opel Vectra safety car, driven by Max Angelelli at the time, to slow down the field and allow the debris from the starting accident to be removed. The cars proceeded under the safety car for 5 laps.
On lap 7, from the onboard camera of Michael Schumacher’s Benetton, Senna’s car was seen to bottom out heavily (as on the previous lap and during his first laps in the warmup session) and then seen to break traction twice at the rear and strike an unprotected concrete barrier at Tamburello corner. Telemetry shows he left the track at 310 km/h (190 mph) and was able to slow the car down by braking to 218 km/h (135 mph) in slightly under 2 seconds before hitting the wall.
A map of the circuit per 1994 layout, with the Tamburello corner encircled.
The car understeered strongly off the track, hit the wall at a shallow angle, tearing off the right front wheel and nose cone, lifted slightly with the nose as it straightened, and spun to a halt. After Senna’s car came to a halt, he remained motionless in the cockpit.
After the crash it was immediately evident that Senna had suffered some form of injury, because of the manner in which his helmet was seen to be motionless and leaning slightly to the side. In the seconds that followed his head was seen to move to one side slightly, causing false hopes to be raised. A considerable amount of time passed before medical units came to his aid, with fire marshals having arrived at the car and unable to touch Senna before qualified medical personnel arrived. Television coverage from an overhead helicopter was seen around the world, as rescue workers gave medical attention. Close inspection of the area in which the medical staff treated Senna revealed a considerable amount of blood on the ground. From visible injuries to Senna’s head it was evident to attending medical professionals that Senna had sustained a grave head trauma. An emergency tracheotomy was conducted trackside to artificially induce breathing on Senna. The race was stopped 1 minute 9 seconds after Senna’s crash.
Approximately 10 minutes after Senna’s crash, a miscommunication in the pits caused a Larrousse car piloted by Érik Comas to leave the pit lane and attempt to rejoin the now red flagged Grand Prix. That incident with Comas was spotted by Eurosport Commentator John Watson as the “most ridiculous incident I ever saw at any time in my life”. Frantic waving by the marshals at Senna’s crash site prevented the Larrousse from risking a collision with the medical helicopter that had landed on the track.
Professor Sidney Watkins, a world-renowned neurosurgeon, Formula One Safety Delegate and Medical Delegate, and the head of the Formula One on-track medical team, performed the on-site tracheotomy on Ayrton Senna.
Watkins later reported:
He looked serene. I raised his eyelids and it was clear from his pupils that he had a massive brain injury. We lifted him from the cockpit and laid him on the ground. As we did, he sighed and, although I am totally agnostic, I felt his soul depart at that moment.
